Tagged: fracking

How would you feel if you or your child became sick with a potentially deadly disease such as the measles, mumps, or whooping cough because the governor of your state banned the vaccines preventing these diseases in deference to a small yet vocal group of anti-vaccination activists who claimed these vaccines cause autism, even though the “science” they cite has been thoroughly discredited?

Research Fellow Isaac Orr introduces the latest addition to The Heartland Institute’s team, Research Fellow Bette Grande. Bette is a former legislator from North Dakota who served in the ND legislature for nearly two decades. During that time she specialized in pension reform and energy issues.

Isaac Orr, a Research Fellow for energy and environmental policy gave a talk on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and frac sand mining in Appleton, Wisconsin as part of the Fox Valley Conservative Forum series.

Two technologies—hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking,” and horizontal drilling—have transformed the United States from an also-ran into a frontrunner in terms of energy production. These breakthroughs allow scientists to tap previously uneconomic reserves of oil and natural gas, making the United States the world’s largest producer of both vital energy sources.

First they came for the coal mining and power plant industry, and most people did not speak out because they didn’t rely on coal, accepted Environmental Protection Agency justifications at face value, or thought EPA’s war on coal would benefit them.

Jon Haubert from the group Coloradans for Responsible Energy Development (CRED) discusses the role that CRED plays in helping the general public understand the process of hydraulic fracturing in a balanced manner that weighs the costs of developing oil and natural gas against the benefits derived from them.

Research Fellow Isaac Orr and his special guest David Quast from Energy In Depth discuss the flaws in the “science” used to justify the ban, the economic impact it will have for the citizens of New York, and the broader implications this ban could potentially have on the industry in other states.

Responding to the announcement by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo that the state would ban fracking, Ms. Noon joined others, bringing their expertise to bear on a topic that remains a concern only because environmentalist enemies of energy in America continue to lie about it every chance they get.

If your crony capitalist money can buy the government regulations you want and reroute the federal treasury into your anti-fossil fuel agenda, you get to keep your taxpayer-fed crony capitalism and anybody who survives gets the socialist shreds.

All this fuss over one buried gas transmission line, a minor addition to the 200,000 miles of such pipelines already transporting natural gas in the United States. The county has electric power lines that are more visually obtrusive and carry more soil erosion risk. We apparently accept those intrusions because we all plug into the wall sockets. The shale gas pipeline, however, will initially carry most of its gas to the cities of coastal Virginia and North Carolina, so it is resented here. Big mistake.

Make no mistake, everything we do has an environmental impact, and frac sand mining is no exception. But to exaggerate the costs and ignore the benefits is dishonest. Wisconsin can take reasonable precautions to develop frac sand resources in an environmentally responsible way and continue to enjoy the benefits of creating thousands of high-paying jobs throughout the state.

Halloween is upon us, and once again opponents of frac sand mining are trying to scare people in Wisconsin and other parts of the Upper Midwest by producing one-sided studies based on unscientific, anecdotal evidence (which is subject to cherry-picking and other biases) to back their claims. Fortunately, the scariest claims these organizations have made about the potential public health impacts of frac sand mining are not supported by the scientific data, and in many cases the data suggest just the opposite.

The joke is that Jimmy Carter is happy that Barack Obama has replaced him as the worst President of the modern era. It is a supreme irony that Obama’s campaign theme was “Hope and Change” when Americans have lost a great deal of hope about their personal futures and the only change they want is to see Obama gone from office.

“You are responsible for President Obama’s re-election,” I told 150 folks from the oil and gas industry —most of whom were conservative Republicans. I spoke to them on October 15 in San Angelo, TX. A reporter covering the event wrote that I “stunned the crowd by telling them they were largely responsible for getting the president re-elected, and asking them if they knew how they had helped.” He continued: “The room was very quiet for several moments as Noon waited to see if anyone would volunteer an answer.”